Mrs. Benson still kept her eyes fixed on Emmeline, and both remained for some time in silence and abstraction. Again all her former doubts and suspicions returned to her mind; and when she looked on her absent, dejected daughter, who still sat gazing on the letter in her hand, she almost resolved to speak to her, and force herself into her confidence. But though with little of the outward refinement of the world, Mrs. Benson had great delicacy of feeling, as well as excellent sense: she felt that when she was not called upon to give advice, or to reprehend what was wrong, she had no business to interfere between her daughter and her husband; and indeed, here, what could she say? Emmeline was certainly changed; she was no longer the gay, light-hearted being she used to be, but _apparently_ her husband behaved perfectly well to her; at least nothing had ever passed, that Mrs. Benson could have named as a proof of unkindness; and as for Emmeline, she was to him gentleness—acquiescence itself; but still, Mrs. Benson could not help feeling that all was not right, although she could not perhaps have given any positive reason for her suspicions. How she longed to bid her confide to her every feeling, every care of her heart, as in days of yore, when she hushed her young sorrows to rest on her bosom, and kissed away her childish tears! But when a mother resigns her darling child to him who is to be the arbiter of her future destiny, she loses, in a great measure, that dear prerogative of affection. Mrs. Benson, feeling this, wisely forbore; and the next day, without any thing more passing between them on the subject, they set off together for Charlton, where Mr. Benson had, since Lady Fitzhenry’s marriage, chiefly resided. When there, Emmeline wrote to her husband. There is something so private, so sacred, in a letter—we can, in writing, express so much, which, either from shyness, or emotion, we cannot bring ourselves to say by word of mouth, that Emmeline longed to give way to her inclinations, and pour out on the paper her feelings towards him; but she felt that the utterance of one word which could in any way be interpreted into an allusion to her painful situation, would be breaking her agreement; and she merely told him of her journey and her safe arrival; glad of having even such uninteresting subjects to treat of, and that to Fitzhenry! to whom she _could_ have written volumes! In about ten days she got an answer; it had no date: (his letters to her never had beyond the post town on the frank.) In it, he named the day for his return to Arlingford. Two days previous to it, notwithstanding Mrs. Benson’s remonstrances, and her father’s railleries, Emmeline would return home. “He might possibly arrive,” she thought to herself; “something might bring him back before the day he had fixed upon, and she was resolved on departure.”